CLEOPATRA GOLD

Another sprawling report from the NYPD, this one tracing the cross-plotted attempts of two divisions to infiltrate a world-class heroin gang. Intelligence's man on the inside is Irish/Mexican lounge-singer Alejandro Monahan, who's been spending most of the years since his cop father was gunned down cultivating dope king Che-Che Morales--so successfully that Che-Che, who considers himself both his patron and his blood brother, doesn't see anything suspect about Alejandro's plan to airlift drug shipments over New York using the state-of-the-art Parapoint delivery system. Meanwhile, though, the boys in Narcotics, who have no idea that Intelligence has its own man in Morales's gang, pluck rookie Fiona Lee from the ranks and send her for a crash- training course at the Hacienda, a training facility in the Blue Ridge where, identifying herself as Belle Starr, she meets Alejandro, calling himself Jesse James. After Alejandro's been flown down to his Mexican hometown so that he can demonstrate the Parapoint system while Che-Che's intimidating his family, it's back to the Big Apple, where the two undercover cops will inevitably meet again and pursue a chaste romance as their apoplectic division chiefs take turns pulling out the rug from under each other to the accompaniment of falling bodies, many shot by sexy, uninhibited mob assassin Judith Stern, code-named Cleopatra. It's that kind of book. Under layers of procedural detail and telling anecdotes, the story is both overgalvanized and meandering--a far cry from One Police Plaza (1984). But Caunitz's novel view that druglords are only the triggermen for the Man's interdepartmental squabbles could sell big copies. (First printing of 75,000)